“All About Us Becomes Policy Without Us”

The Good COP at the Margins of COP11

The Essentials

A parallel, multi-day conference (“Good COP”) held a few minutes from the official COP11, convening scientists, clinicians, users, advocates, and policy experts from multiple regions to debate tobacco harm reduction and global nicotine regulation.

The agenda is structured around high-stakes panels on Article 2.1 of the FCTC, “THR in the Americas,” the Swedish experience, philanthro-colonialism, EU TPD/TED review, and user agency, shifting the focus from slogans to empirically grounded, risk-proportionate policies.

Economic and funding dynamics are explicitly brought to the center: affordability and access in LMICs, costs of prohibitionist approaches, illicit markets, and the role of conditioned funding and large philanthropy in shaping what becomes “possible” policy.

The gathering serves as an impact intervention rather than a side event, dissecting regulatory capture, semantic manipulation, and opaque treaty mechanisms while advocating for models of regulation based on informed consent, reduced risk, and measurable health benefits.

Voices from the Global South, Eastern Europe, and organized user groups confront the democratic deficit in tobacco control, contesting the notion of “policy without us” and demanding co-authorship of norms that currently treat them as objects of regulation rather than political subjects.

Why It Matters

The Good COP reframes tobacco control not as a closed, technocratic ritual, but as a contested political space in which those who bear the consequences demand the right to speak and be heard in the language of evidence.

By placing ex-smokers, organized users, and researchers from the Philippines, Thailand, Nigeria, Costa Rica, South America, and Southeast Asia alongside long-time public health figures, it challenges the idea that “science” only flows from Geneva, Brussels, or Washington.

At stake is more than nicotine. The conference highlights how moralistic, prohibition-driven regulation can exacerbate inequalities, criminalize poverty, and impose one-size-fits-all policies in fragile contexts where law enforcement already poses a source of harm.

By interrogating Article 2.1, philanthro-colonialism, and the erasure of user voices, the Good COP insists on a different principle: that public health without democratic agency is not protection, but administration. It reminds us that behind every spreadsheet and clause, there is breath. And breath is never neutral.

What Changes in Practice

Health/Regulation – The Good COP advocates for regulatory frameworks that prioritize combustion reduction, rather than abstinence at any cost. This includes differential regulation for low-risk products, protection of access to less harmful alternatives, and sunset clauses for policies that generate more harm than they prevent.

It also proposes a re-reading of the FCTC—especially Article 2.1—as a tool for national autonomy instead of a backdoor for soft mandates and coercive “guidance.”

Industry/Innovation – By treating devices like Sweden’s Stingfree/PROTEX as both technical solutions and political allegories, the event signals that innovation should be judged by risk and benefit, not by moral panic or origin.

It opens up space for partnerships in which independent science, user communities, and responsible manufacturers co-produce standards of safety, transparency, and accountability, rather than being locked into an adversarial caricature.

Society/Environment – User testimonies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America reframe harm reduction as a question of dignity and survival in economies where prohibition feeds illicit markets and policy violence.

The Good COP suggests that “participation” means more than being surveyed: it means letting those who live under the rules help write them.

This has cultural implications that extend beyond nicotine, affecting how global health institutions interact with the people they claim to serve.

Scenarios and Next Steps

Short term (1–2 years): Replication of Good COP–style parallel forums at future COP meetings and other UN gatherings, building a documented “living record” of dissenting science and user testimony.

Strengthening of transnational networks linking researchers (e.g., Canada, Mexico, Greece, Malaysia, Sweden) and organized users (The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates, Africa Harm Reduction Alliance, ARDT Iberoamérica, advocates from Eastern European countries) around concrete demands: open sessions, transparency in funding, and explicit recognition of harm reduction within FCTC implementation.

Medium term (3–5 years): Incorporation of risk-proportionate regulation into national tobacco control strategies in a growing number of countries, particularly where illicit markets and enforcement-driven policies have visibly failed. Emergence of alternative guidelines and model laws, authored by mixed coalitions of scientists, users, and local policymakers, that compete with, or complement, WHO and PAHO templates, especially in the Global South.

Long term (5–10 years): Gradual cultural shift away from prohibitionist reflexes toward a public health paradigm that treats adults as agents, not targets.

If the Good COP’s agenda gains traction, we can expect structural changes: a reduced burden of smoking-related disease through sustained decline in smoking, diminished space for philanthro-colonial influence over domestic priorities, and a new norm where no major health policy is drafted “about” people without their organized participation.

The Takeaway

When official policy is written behind closed doors, a parallel conference can reopen a window, allowing those who bear the consequences to help write the rules.

• Good COP – full agenda (PDF):
  https://www.protectingtaxpayers.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Media-Fin-2.0-Updated-agenda-2.pdf

• Good COP livestreams (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/@ProtectingTaxpayers/streams

For Further Reading